


we're only human, tonight, and for the rest of our lives

by wtfoctagon



Series: Code Vein continuity where everyone's at least a little bit gay [1]
Category: Code Vein (Video Game)
Genre: Dweller in the Dark | Good Ending (Code Vein), F/F, Gen, Gender-Neutral Protagonist (Code Vein), This is half Karen and Mia getting to know each other over talking about Io and Cruz, half karen and aurora being totally married because hello?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28426719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: The Queenslayer flinches whenever they make eye contact.It’s subtle, maybe unnoticeable to most— but Karen has been trained to look for every and any signs of distress in her patients, so it’s a fairly familiar sight. Just a quick flash of pain— a reaction to some mundane reminder of things they’ve lost. Gone as fast as it happened, replaced by a pleasant smile and a polite greeting.
Relationships: Karen & Cruz Silva, Karen & Mia Karnstein, Karen/Aurora Valentino
Series: Code Vein continuity where everyone's at least a little bit gay [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109273
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	we're only human, tonight, and for the rest of our lives

**Author's Note:**

> an original title for once instead of a song lyric, whoopee. 
> 
> started out wanting to see the characters acknowledge that Io looked like Karen and why, ended up getting too deep in Karen's character.

The Queenslayer flinches whenever they make eye contact.

It’s subtle, maybe unnoticeable to most— but Karen has been trained to look for every and any signs of distress in her patients, so it’s a fairly familiar sight. Just a quick flash of pain— a reaction to some mundane reminder of things they’ve lost. Gone as fast as it happened, replaced by a pleasant smile and a polite greeting.

She sees it from the others too. Yakumo and Murasame especially, being the two who are the worst at concealing their emotions. Even Louis, which is a surprise— they grew up together as family, if anything he should be reminded _of_ her and not _by_ her. 

But then again, it’s been a long handful of years since she went under, leaving him to wake up alone on a deathbed. Long enough that he built a home and a life for himself in this worn-down cathedral.

It’s empty, right now— it usually is at this time of night, when everyone’s either gone to sleep or out on patrol, and she has the whole chapel floor to herself. Or, well, almost— the click of her heels on the flooring has the girl on the balcony jumping up from her seat and staring with wide eyes.

Mia Karnstein. Daughter of Ambassador Tobias Karnstein and Professor Laura Sheridan, both moderately high-profile figures in the world before the apocalypse. Died at age 18, woke from the BOR parasite injection five years after the end of Operation Queenslayer, bringing her to a mental age of 23 — though Karen never _did_ get to finish her research on the long-term effects of the parasite on individuals yet to reach full maturity. Mia Karnstein will live the rest of her life with an underdeveloped frontal lobe, and consequently, a much higher emotional influence on her judgement-making capabilities— though perhaps, this is less analogous to eternal teen-like-ness so much as a young adult with mild symptoms of a Cluster B personality disorder.

Incidentally, Mia Karnstein is also a person who is still frozen on the balcony like a deer in headlights, and Karen needs to get a better grip on her bad habit of mentally listing through the medical history of everyone she comes across. 

“Hello there,” she starts, trying for a reassuring smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Mia looks more stricken than startled, but Karen doesn’t comment. She looks her age now, having done away with the pigtails to opt for a braided ponytail and plainer clothing. 

“No, sorry, I—” she tucks her chin towards her chest and absently brushes some of her hair out of her face, as if to hide without really seeming like she is. “For a second I thought you were—”

She comes to a crashing stop on the name that refuses to be spoken by her or any of the others who see the ghost of a friend in Karen’s silhouette— or, maybe, they refuse to speak it for fear of letting any piece of a loved one escape from their chest. 

“She must have been very important to you.”

Mia’s eyes snap up to her again, though with a slightly different sort of alarm. “I’m sorry,” she starts, clasping her hands together listlessly. “You’re probably sick of it by now.”

Karen laughs as she walks over, taking the seat at the patio table across from Mia. “It’s alright, I don’t mind. I suppose I just feel a bit guilty.” 

“You shouldn’t.” Mia grimaces as she falls back into her seat. “It’s not your fault at all— she didn’t even really look that much like you, it’s just…”

Wishful thinking? Force of habit? To be missed so dearly— she must have been an exceptionally kind soul, from what she hears from the others as well. It’s hardly any surprise. She was made by the kindest, bravest soul to walk this planet, after all. 

Karen can see Mia working through her thoughts to give a more acceptable answer than the real one, eventually just scoffing at herself and shaking her head again. 

“Sorry. This must be so strange for you.”

“A little,” Karen admits with a laugh. “Though I suppose I’m… more confused than anything about why she didn’t look more like Cruz, being a clone formed from her last vestige before she frenzied.”

Mia leans back in her chair, staring off into the wisps of the Gaol reaching up for the stars on the horizon. 

“I… think it makes sense, kind of. I only know what I heard from Louis and Dr. Valentino talking about it, but…”

How interesting— that her dear brother and colleague had discussed something so _relevant_ to their shared field of study, and she had heard absolutely nothing of it from them. Ever so overprotective, the both of them. 

“They were talking about how Cruz didn’t exactly… _mean_ to make clones. She was so powerful that her last wish to try and heal the damage she’d done kept making duplicate revenants from her vestige. Dr. Valentino said that— that it only made sense that those revenants were influenced by Cruz’s strongest associations with the idea of healing or caretaking. And— well—” Mia looks at her a bit nervously here. “I don’t… know much about everything that happened, but you were her doctor, right?”

Yes, she was— she was the chief medical officer on Project QUEEN, the one to actually administer all the medicine and extract blood samples from Cruz Silva. Cruz Silva, who, _apparently,_ associated her with _healing—_ as if the painkillers and nice words meant _anything_ in the larger scheme of things. As if Karen wasn’t complicit in her extended torture and eventual murder. 

She leans forward, bracing her elbows against her knees, and pinches the bridge of her nose. What a joke. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” 

The soft, empathetic tone shakes Karen out of the sudden spike of anger, if only by reflex— she laughs and clasps her hands together, putting on her best smile.

“It’s alright, really. It’s just…” Funny, that it’s her turn to be at a loss for words now. “I wish I’d actually done anything to warrant her thinking so highly of me. She deserved so much better.”

“Maybe,” Mia says, “but you did everything you could to make sure she suffered as little as possible.” 

Karen brings her hands up against her face and scoffs into them. “None of it mattered in the end.”

There’s a silence that she didn’t mean to pull down, and she goes to push it aside when Mia beats her to it.

“It mattered to her. Io wouldn’t have looked like you if it didn’t.”

Karen closes her eyes to shut in the sudden threat of tears. 

(Hatred would have been more bearable than misplaced faith. She was just a child when they nailed her to the cross with a smile and promises of salvation— oh, _God,_ she was only a child.)

Taking in a heavy breath, she lets her clasped hands hang between her knees as she sighs into a smile. “Would you tell me more about her?” she asks, because she’d really rather not cry and because she really does want to know. How could she not? “Your friend, I mean.”

Mia’s eyes go from determined empathy to surprised blinks before she looks down at the floor and starts fiddling with the end of her ponytail. 

“Well I— I didn’t know her for very long. Louis and the others could probably tell you more.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not,” Karen reassures her. “But I’d like to hear it from you, if you didn’t mind.”

She is, after all, the first person to say Io’s name in front of Karen other than Jack or Aurora— and, as Karen is starting to find, an impressively insightful young woman. 

“I…” Mia sighs. “I wish I’d gotten to know her better than I did. She was… kind. The kindest person I’ve ever met, really. There were times when—” she snorts wryly here. “When she would jump in front of me to try and save me from a hard hit. It scared me half to death anyway, though.” A pained smile, as she leans forward against the patio table. “She didn’t really get why, though, not until later. It made me so sad. She just… didn’t understand why anyone would care about her.” 

Karen watches Mia’s eyes flit across the surface of the table, finding a new scratch mark or stray splinter to escape to. 

“But she did understand eventually, right?”

Mia nods, her eyes settling on an old knot in the wood to stare past. “It was a process, but… yeah. Bit by bit, she started to smile instead of staring at me blankly when I would make her tea and stuff. One time she—” she laughs, pressing the tips of her fingers against her eyes for a moment. “God, it’s going to sound so stupid that I remember this but— one time I brought back some new shoes I found in the city because she kind of needed a new pair. That was the first time she touched my shoulder to say thank you, and it was…” 

She stops, eyes fluttering from one point to another again as if searching for the rest of her sentence. 

“You don’t have to continue,” Karen reminds her gently. “I know it’s kind of a big ask.”

“No, no, I—” Mia shakes her head and takes up her smile again. “I’m sorry. I just get so angry when I think about it, sometimes. We all wanted her to be able to want things for herself. To live her own life instead of just being an Attendant. The fact that she _did_ find her way, that she did make her own choices for herself, and that it lasted all of a _month_ at most, is just…” She swallows harshly. “It wasn’t fair.”

She turns her head away and grimaces at the horizon, and it finally occurs to Karen that they’ve basically just flipped the script of the first half of their conversation. To remember someone so kind, so loving who deserved a happier ending, and all the anger that comes with those memories— 

Oh, but it wouldn’t be fair to parallel herself to Mia, would it? Mia had wanted nothing but happiness for Io, had _fought_ for her right to be free, while all Karen had done for Cruz was to make her death as slow as possible. They are not the same— and maybe, that’s the crux of why Io had been able to do what Cruz couldn’t. To create a permanent solution, to really and _truly_ save everyone. 

For a moment, Karen entertains the notion that maybe, if she had been a better person— if she’d taken all those goddamned cables and tubes out of Cruz, told Juzo Mido to go _fuck_ himself, taken Aurora and Cruz and _ran_ — that maybe, if she had realized sooner that a solution based on suffering and sacrifice would mean nothing, then maybe, it didn’t have to go as far as it did. Then maybe, Cruz would have been able to save everyone herself, like she always wanted to, like Io finally did.

But then again, Io had paid for it with her life. Even in this hopeful what-if, Cruz would still be dead and gone, so what difference would it even make anyhow?

Then the door slams open and heavy boots stomp through the threshold.

“Yo, Mia, it’s your tur— oh, hey Karen.”

Karen smiles. “Hello, Yakumo. Done with your patrol already?” 

“Why do you say that like I’m slacking off?” Yakumo laughs, hoisting his greatsword up onto its shelf. “I finish at one o’ clock, on the dot.” He yawns, stretching as he lumbers towards the hallway. “Thank god, too, I don’t know how you stand the graveyard shift.” 

Mia rolls her eyes as she stands up. “It’s quieter without _you_ around to complain about it.”

“Oh, you wound me!” he laughs, clutching his heart as he walks backwards. “I’m gonna have to go sleep that off. You ladies have a good night.”

Karen laughs. “You too.”

And with that, he disappears around the corner, and it’s just the two of them again. Mia shuffles awkwardly.

“Well, I guess, um. I should go.”

Karen nods, standing up as well. “I should probably turn in as well. Stay safe out there.”

“Yeah, I— I will,” she says, still making no move to go grab her gear. “Um, Dr. Amamiya, I…”

Dear _god_ it’s been a while since anyone’s called her that. “Please, call me Karen.”

The notion of it seems to daunt Mia a bit— Karen wonders if her upbringing had been more formal on account of her father being a diplomat— but she squares her shoulders.

“Karen.” Mia nods. “I’ve been wanting to say thank you. For everything.”

She words it like she’s thanking Karen for her work, her time as a Successor, but somehow it comes off more grateful for the company tonight more than anything. Such a serious look of determination on such a young face, for such a trivial thing—

And for a split second, Karen sees Cruz haloed by the moonlight, holding her fragile frame with steely conviction. 

(Just a quick flash of pain— a reaction to some mundane reminder of someone she’s lost. Gone as fast as it happened, replaced by a pleasant smile.)

“You’re very welcome, Mia,” she says. “I hope you have a good night.”

Mia smiles back, her posture finally easing up. “You too.”

With that, she heads over to grab her coat, and Karen starts making her way back to her room as well. 

How funny is that? She thinks to herself as she closes her door— how funny is it that we’ve all died and come back, that our lives revolve around blood beads and ichor and all this revenant nonsense—

And somehow, we’re still just so hopelessly _human._

* * *

The cathedral is empty the next morning as well, save for the incredible smell of coffee and one Aurora Valentino.

“Good morning, Doctor,” she teases, sliding a cup over the bar counter towards Karen. “Could I interest you in a bit of caffeine?” 

Their bodies don’t benefit from caffeine all that much anymore, but that hasn’t seemed to make it any less enjoyable. Karen takes a seat at the bar, cradling the mug with both hands as she takes in the earthy smell.

“I can’t remember the last time I had hand-drip coffee.” 

Aurora laughs over her shoulder as she dumps the grounds and places the kettle and cones into the sink. “I can’t remember the last time I had coffee at all. It’s been what, eleven years?”

“Give or take,” Karen mutters into the rim of her mug before letting the first notes of the blend hit her tongue. Dark, woody, with almost a hint of chocolate. Stale— as all coffee is this long after the Gaol cropped up— but remarkably well-preserved. 

“Where did you get this?” 

Aurora smiles at her as she stands at the counter across from Karen, dropping a few sugar cubes into her own mug. “A little birdie found an unopened cache of vacuum-sealed products in a run-down cafe last night during her patrol. I may or may not have tried to bribe her to let me have the first pick.”

“Oh?” Karen snorts, taking another sip. “I didn’t think Mia was the kind to take bribes.”

“And you would be correct,” is the cheerful reply. “‘Tried’ is the operative word here; the girl tried to damn near give me the entire cache before I even finished asking.”

“And you didn’t take it? Who are you and what have you done with Aurora Valentino?”

Aurora rolls her eyes. “Oh, bite me,” she laughs. “I know how to share and play nice.”

“Mhm, of course.” Karen smiles as Aurora sticks her tongue out like a little child, and it’s almost like old times— lazy mornings after late nights, always finding time for each other inbetween one project or another—

And, oh. It _has_ been a while, hasn’t it? Aurora’s hair falls messily around her shoulders like it always has, her glasses slowly sliding off her nose. Such lovely eyes, always hidden behind those nerdy blue-light protected glasses she hasn’t replaced since her bachelor’s degree. She had never put very much effort into her appearance, doing just the bare minimum to look professional when she had to— Karen remembers the never-ending rotation of t-shirts and old jeans she saw when they were rooming together, how charming it had started to seem after a while. 

“Do you really not remember the last time you had coffee?”

Aurora raises a brow at her. “Is that so surprising? It must have been some time just before… well, before Project QUEEN ended. I barely remember sleeping back then. Why do you ask?”

“Because I do.” Karen traces her index finger along the rim of her mug, keeping her eyes on Aurora’s. “It was Thursday night, right after the team meeting. My motion to delay the next phase of tests until Cruz had recovered more was rejected, and we were supposed to implement the new drugs the next day.” 

Aurora frowns, idly stirring her coffee. “I think… maybe, yeah. I remember you being upset.”

“I was crying,” Karen reminds her. “I couldn’t stand it anymore, having to put Cruz through so many terrible tests with hardly any breaks. You brought us both some coffee from the lobby.”

“The shitty instant mix that you hated?” she coughs. “That was the best I could do?”

Karen laughs, pushing a bit of hair out of her face. “Yeah, the shitty maxim gold. It was the only thing left, and you didn’t want to bring me plain hot water.”

“Ugh.” Aurora grimaces. “You would have preferred plain water. I must have been _tired.”_

Karen taps her fingertips against the old wood of the bar, still keeping her eyes on Aurora. “Yeah, you were. You could barely keep your eyes open, but you were still there for me. Like you always have been.”

Ten long years, in suffering and pain, while Karen slept peacefully just downstairs. The decision had been made after she went under with the relic— it was as unsurprising as it was heartbreaking, and she wishes she’d heard it from Aurora herself instead of finding out by some off-hand comment from Louis. 

But that’s neither here nor there, is it? Karen reaches across the bar to grab the collar of Aurora’s shirt and pulls her into a slow kiss. 

Aurora just blinks at her blankly after she leans back, letting go of her shirt to smooth out the creases. 

“What…” Aurora blinks a few times more. “Was that?”

“Long overdue.” Karen clasps her hands around her mug again, furrowing her brows. “Unless you’ve changed your mind since the last time we talked about it…?”

That finally seems to snap her out of it— Aurora shakes her head, eyes widening as she pushes her glasses up. “No, no, I just— you… You said that you weren’t interested, I thought…”

“I said that I wanted to focus on my work,” Karen corrects, shaking her head. “But… I never did get the chance to get back to you, did I?”

Aurora looks down at her hands. “You were busy. _We_ were busy.”

“And we’ll _always_ be busy. Project QUEEN and Queenslayer are both over, but now we have to keep up our studies on the blood beads— and I know you’ve been thinking about starting a project to help child revenants age to full maturity by adapting the regeneration process.”

“Well.” Aurora laughs. “No rest for the wicked.” 

Karen frowns. “It’s okay if it’s too late. I get it. I’ve kept you waiting for so long over nothing.”

“It’s not—” Aurora grimaces. “It’s not that. I just…” she peers up at Karen over the rim of her glasses, chewing on her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”

Insecurity, is it? Well. Karen knows that’s her fault anyway. 

“The whole time I was under, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I regretted not doing,” she murmurs. “Missing Louis’ graduation. Not doing enough to protect Cruz.” Her eyes flicker up to Aurora’s. “Saying no to you over reasons that didn’t matter anyway.”

Aurora takes in a shaky breath, and Karen presses on.

“I’m so tired of regret,” she says— and it hits her harder than she meant it to because god, it’s true. All those years she made Louis have to grow up on his own— all those times she asked Cruz to hold on for one more day, one more test— every single moment that she watched Aurora love her without expecting to get any of it back—

She can’t do anything about it now. But she sure as hell isn’t going to let it go on any longer than it has to. 

“So… I’d like to start now,” she says, “Aurora, if you’d still have me…”

For a moment, it’s quiet, and Karen braces herself— this was a possibility, after all, and at least she won’t regret never getting to put her heart on the table.

“I always wanted to take you out to that stupid exlusive italian place in Harlem,” Aurora says, reaching over to take Karen’s hand. “It’s gone now, but I hear there’s a human settlement that’s started a pizza restaurant near where Chinatown used to be— I mean, we wouldn’t be able to have the food since it’s reserved for people who actually need it, but apparently they still serve wine for revenants, and…”

Karen threads their fingers together. “Do we have to make a reservation, or could we go there tonight?”

Aurora smiles, uncharacteristically shy, and it almost reminds Karen of when they were first getting to know each other back in their freshman year— an eternity ago, when they were both barely seventeen going on eighteen, and the future held so much _promise._

Harvard is probably a rotting ruin now, good riddance— but if there’s one good thing it ever did for her, it was bringing Aurora Valentino into her life.

“Yeah,” she says. “Tonight sounds good.”

**Author's Note:**

> .... please don't ask me why I'm writing fic for a weeb anime boob game, I know, I know.


End file.
